Chinese people taking Chinese New Year holidays in Queenstown have topped up rooms during summer peaks in recent years. This week, however, Mountain Scene reported vacancy signs hung outside resort hotels and rooms were still available on bookings sites like Wotif.
Queenstown Chinese restaurateur Ming Han told the paper Chinese bus tour numbers to his restaurant had halved, put off by the town’s high hotel prices.
"It’s stupid — three to four-star hotels are charging five-star prices."
Queenstown Tourism Industry Aotearoa hotel spokesman Brian Howie said the tour groups might be put off by the room rates, but "we’re still seeing those rooms taken up by [free independent] travellers, not necessarily Chinese".
Destination Queenstown’s Graham Budd was still analysing what caused the drop-off, but conceded the cost of accommodation "is likely to be one of the factors".
He said another factor could be that tourism industry representatives have been for some time spreading "the wrong message" that Queenstown was full in peak season.
But in Wanaka it was a different story.
A spokeswoman for Wanaka’s five-star Lakeside Apartments said they had had an increase in the number of Chinese staying. On some nights up to 50% of their guests were Chinese.
Wanaka’s Orient Express Chinese restaurant owner Bee Lim said they were even busier than usual this Chinese New Year period. She had noticed visitors this year were less likely to be in tour buses and more likely to be travelling in smaller groups, in private vehicles. She said she was having to turn away customers "night after night", it was so busy.
Lake Wanaka Tourism general manager James Helmore said activities were what attracted Chinese visitors to Wanaka during Chinese New Year and skydiving was the No1 attraction.
A spokeswoman for Skydive Wanaka said at the moment 70% of each planeload they were taking up were Chinese people.
Chinese visitors wanted to do it because it was "exciting" and probably not something they could do in China, she said. Tourism New Zealand’s general manager for Asia, David Craig, said TNZ expected the same number of Chinese New Year holidaymakers in New Zealand as last year, about 30,000, arriving over the two weeks.
He said New Zealand had become more expensive and other markets, especially the US and Europe, competed hard for Chinese visitors, so tourists were becoming more price-conscious.
- Kerrie Waterworth and Philip Chandler
